Tdsat
hearing: MSOs object to basic service tier conditions in Trai
tariff order

Indiantelevision.com
Team

(12
September 2012 9:41 pm)

NEW DELHI: The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai)
has negated the very concept of a basic service tier (BST)
for a bouquet of free-to-air television (FTA) channels, by
giving a confusing and faulty Tariff Order, an
MSO counsel told Tdsat while arguing against the order.

The
order says that a subscriber will be provided a BST of 100
free-to-air (FTA) channels at a fee of Rs 100 but goes on
to add that "it shall be open to the subscriber to choose
any combination of free to air channels up to 100 channels,
in lieu of the BST offered by the multi-system operator."

This
nullified the meaning of BST, counsel for MSO Delhi Distribution
Company Navin Chawla, told Tdsat (Telecom Disputes Settlement
and Appellate Tribunal), which is hearing cases challenging
the Trai Tariff Order of 30 April.

Chawla pointed out that the order also wants the BST offered
by the MSO to include at least five channels of the each genre,
namely news and current affairs, infotainment, sports, kids,
music, lifestyle, movies and general entertainment in Hindi,
English and regional language of the concerned region.

He
argued that if five channels for every language was provided,
then the number of channels with all the genres would easily
cross 100.

He
claimed Trai had done no study to find out whether an average
viewer wanted 100 channels in the BST.

In
any case, he said a similar order of 2007 had been challenged
by the MSO Alliance and others before Tdsat, which had held
that that the order had failed to specify tariffs and had
only given a ceiling and slabs and that Trai needed to revisit
the exercise to fix the tariffs in a holistic manner. Tdsat
had also clearly stated that tariff meant the cost that the
consumer has to pay.

Chawla
said merely because the matter had gone in appeal before the
Supreme Court which has ordered status quo till final disposal
was no reason for Trai to commit the same flaw five years
later. "Each word remains the same and we are back to
square one," he claimed.

He
said in any case, no formula for revenue sharing could be
laid down unless all the beneficiaries were named. In this
case, there had been no reference to the broadcaster and only
the MSO and local cable operators (LCOs) had been named. Furthermore,
he said a revenue sharing can only be talked about when a
systematically worked out revenue figure is given.

He
said Section 11(2) of the Trai Act 1997 stated: "The
Authority may, from time to time, by order, notify in the
Official Gazette the rates at which the telecommunication
services within India and outside India shall be provided
under this Act including the rates at which messages shall
be transmitted to any country outside India".

Thus,
the Act was very clear that the Authority should lay down
the tariff that a consumer will have to pay, but this had
clearly been overlooked by the Authority which had merely
indulged in patchwork and not fulfilled its
duty. He said a new system like the digital addressable
system needed a new Tariff formula, but Trai had merely
amended the Tariff Order of 2010.

Chawla
claimed that no exercise had been undertaken to work out
the costs incurred either by the MSO or the LCO.

He
said soon after Trai was given charge of broadcasting in
2004, it had frozen the channel-wise rates in January that
year since it was new to the field. That directive had not
led to any litigation, and therefore, a similar formula
could have been adopted. He said this suggestion had been
given to Trai when it held consultations with stakeholders
before issuing the latest Tariff Order.

Chawla
said that in any case, fixation of the BST should have been
the domain of the MSO and the government should have interfered
only if all the genres were not supplied to the consumer.

He
also challenged the rationale for keeping the overall number
of channels at 500. He said that an MSO would have to spend
money to put up the technology for receiving so many channels,
even if the viewers did not want so many channels. No rationale
had been given even for the 100 in the BST or how public
interest would have been affected if the number had been
different.